Bearing‐only control of directed cycle formations: Almost global convergence and hardware implementation

Abstract

Summary In this article, we study bearing‐only control of directed cyclic formations. First, we provide a necessary and sufficient condition on the bearing constraints so that the directed cycle formation of n ‐agents in ( n −1)‐dimensional space is infinitesimally bearing rigid. Second, a bearing‐only control law which only allows motions perpendicular to the desired bearing vector is proposed. Under this control law, the agents globally asymptotically converge to a desired formation which is fully determined from their initial positions and desired bearing vectors. Finally, the proposed formation control law is implemented on mobile robots to support the analysis.